


A Glimpse behind the Magicians' Curtain

by TheHoardingPuffin



Category: Now You See Me (Movies)
Genre: Backstory, Can be read as Romance or Platonic, Character Study, Con Artists, Fluff, Gen, Magical Realism, Of sorts anyways, Podfic Welcome, Sick Jack Wilder, Sickfic, Team as Family, lost moments
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-14
Updated: 2020-10-14
Packaged: 2021-03-08 21:35:34
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,606
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27013609
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TheHoardingPuffin/pseuds/TheHoardingPuffin
Summary: Thirteen glimpses behind the "curtain" of the Four Horsemen as they go through their spectacular heists.
Relationships: J. Daniel Atlas/Merritt McKinney/Henley Reeves/Jack Wilder, The Four Horsemen (Now You See Me) & Dylan Rhodes
Comments: 4
Kudos: 70





	A Glimpse behind the Magicians' Curtain

**I**

Jack was ten when he is taken from his home and to a foster family. At the time, he didn’t understand it, he fought the strangers that suddenly showed up and told him to pack his things and come with them, he bit one of them in the hand and kicked the other one where it truly hurts, and he cried as they took him away, shouting for his Dad to _stop this, tell them to stop, I wanna stay with you, don’t let them take me!_

He didn’t understand then why his father just stood there, arms limply hanging by his side, a sort of broken, lifeless expression on his face. He didn’t understand half of the questions the people asked him – the people who said they were protecting children, which seemed so ridiculous to him then because he wasn’t in need of protecting!?! – _Does your father touch you sometimes? Does your father bring home strangers? Do you eat? Does your father drink? Did your father ever hit you?_

“Those are stupid questions”, Jack said and crossed his arms in front of his chest. Of course he ate, and obviously his father drank, because without drinking he would de-hy-something, he would die, any little child knew this! But they didn’t seem to mean drinking water or juice, and Jack was at loss about what else they could mean.

The family he was brought to was normal, on the surface. A man, a woman, two daughters. One older than Jack, one younger. They were nice, but something didn’t feel _right_ about them. Their house was weird, all white, the furniture too new and you weren’t allowed to sit on half of them which entirely defeated the purpose of a chair and a sofa… there were no photos on the walls, just a couple of ugly paintings – Jack was convinced that even he could paint better than that – and there were so many rules that it gave him a headache. Don’t speak during the meals, don’t speak unless spoken to, don’t stay out late, don’t stay inside all day, don’t wear shoes inside, play with your sisters, don’t call the adults _Mom_ and _Dad_ … Nothing made sense, and more often than not, Jack felt like he was wearing a very tight sweater without sleeves that squished him and made it impossible to breathe.

He ran away after a few weeks. He was found three days after. The foster family didn’t want him back.

In the following years, Jack lived in a handful more foster homes, some better than others, but none felt right. He ran away for the last time at sixteen. This time, nobody came to find him.

**II**

Jonathan Daniel Atlas wasn’t a Number One in life. He wasn’t born to be one. He wasn’t the first born child of his family. His family wasn’t rich, but they were comfortable enough to afford a nice apartment and vacations to other states every summer. His father wasn’t the highest position in his job, but he was sort of a second in command. His mother wasn’t a curator at the museum she worked at, but she was head pedagogue and often advised. His older sister was a One, though – perfect daughter Alina Atlas, with a perfect beautiful name, ballerina who later turned to figure skating and won prizes in sparkling costumes and sporting a bright smile. Daniel was only a Number Two. He did sports but he never won any prices. He was a decent runner and had okay aim, but was never picked to play in any good teams. He was a bit of an awkward kid, bad at looking others in the eye, suspicions of him being autistic were made for a while but proven wrong by a therapist he was dragged to after his mother grew tired of her friends giving her pseudo-helpful tips about how to raise an autistic child.

So, Daniel wasn’t autistic, but that didn’t change his status as a Number Two of life. He wasn’t the most popular kid in school. He was just… always in the middle ground. He was okay-looking but not enough to attract the girls. He was good in English classes, and later Politics and Ethnics, anything where he could use his words, but anything involving maths he just couldn’t do. Not logics, no, he was great at those, but numbers where his Achilles’ heel. _Dyscalculia_. Oh, well, so he wasn’t the guy who had straight As on every class, either. Middle Ground. He wasn’t charismatic enough to be in any higher position in his grade, not funny enough to be the class clown – in fact, he was pretty serious for a kid – or athletic enough to be on any sports team. The only things at school he was actually good at was chess and theatre – both of which didn’t exactly help his popularity. But in one of his first theatre classes he first saw a card trick, and over the years, while he played a number of roles on stage – from Courfeyrac in _Les Misérables_ to Bassanio in Merchant of Venice – he learned and perfected magic. Card tricks, distraction and deception of the audience, and with the magic finally came his own hobby-horse, his special thing that made him a One.

**III**

Mrs. Aella McKinney loved names with meaning. She had spent most of her youth in Hawai’i and had fallen in love with the native practice of dreaming or finding names for a child. Names that meant something, names that told you something about the person or that could even predict their roles in life. Her fascination with this whole name-business showed in the names of her sons. Merritt and Chase, the oldest two, twins, identical, set apart by only thirteen minutes, then Faith, Aria and Gambit. People would laugh about Aella’s antics and the absurd names she had picked out, but she had never cared. “It’s a small town, people have small minds”, she’d say and laugh about it all. Laughing about it was how she dealt with most things, and Merritt picked this up. He didn’t ridicule everything or make everything a joke, but he took things in good humour unless the situation really, _really_ didn’t allow for it. Different from his brother, who also took everything with humour, but who also found the most stupid things to be hilarious. Merritt already understand this as a kid, his brother was, without a doubt or remedy, batshit crazy. And yet, the two of them were attached at the hip. _The Magic McKinneys_ , their parent’s pride, pulling off your standard repertoire of magic tricks kids could perform – rabbit in a box, cars tricks, a bit of fortune telling. This was something Merritt was especially gifted at. He was more quiet than Chase, more perceptive, picking up tiny details and changes in behaviour and learning to read them like other people read a news article or a report in the Sunday Post. And it was this thing, this talent, that he used when he took off with magic, with mentalism. He took off with mentalism, and his brother took off with his money. The bastard.

“I never thought I’d determine all your fates when I named you”, his mother told him on her sickbed (Merritt refused to use the word deathbed). Merritt was there, his siblings outside – all except Chase.

“What do you mean?”, he asked, silently. “Momma, those were coincidences!”

“Were they?” His mother cracked a smile. “Gambit works in Visual Effect now, doesn’t she? And Faith studied religion. Aria is a music producer.”

“Aria works _for_ a music producer”, Merritt corrected. “And Faith studied _History of_ Religion.”

“And you… you and your brother”, his mother went on. “Chase and Merritt… I doomed you when I named you!”

“Momma, that’s just-“

“Chase was always impatient, couldn’t wait to get what he wanted. You sat back and waited until you had earned what you wanted. Chase and Merritt. To chase and to merit.”

Merritt laughed and called her a silly, wonderful mother, but after she passed, this thought never left his mind again.

**IV**

Never in a million years would Henley Reeves have thought that one day, she’d stand in front of an audience in Los Angeles, in a glittering costumes and handcuffs, picking locks under water and tricking a bunch of people into believing that piranhas – who didn’t usually attack humans, even when they were hungry – had eaten her just to appear outside of the tank. No, that was no path she would have seen herself take. Not her. Henley hadn’t come from a family with a lot of money, but they had made do. Her mother worked three jobs, her father two. Her older brother payed his share and had gotten a full scholarship for college so that was no issue for the family. And sure, Henley never had a lot of money, but she never looked poor. Her mother had found ways to get her clothing that looked like it was expensive and well-made, even though it was usually two or three or more seasons behind. Henley got good grades, did volunteer work after school, helped out at home, she was class president and later valedictorian – and then, something happened. Something cracked. Even years later, Henley couldn’t figure out _what_ it had been. One day, she had been perfect girl Henley Reeves, and then she was Henley, who dropped out of college, who no longer slept full nights, who swore and got drunk and got into a fight with another young woman, a fight to blood and bone.

Maybe all the years of being Little Miss Perfect had taken a toll, that was all? Maybe all the years if straight hair, straight As, straight forward weren’t the path for her. Who cared, the point was that she fell in a hole and didn’t come out of it for a while. Everything felt… cold. Empty. Meaningless.

And then, she found something. A spark of light.

Unfortunately, this spark of light was attached to a rude young man with the name of a Greek legend, who believed that his name gave him the burden of carrying everything on his shoulders and to control everything. But this arrogant, rude man, Daniel Atlas, gave her work, taught her tricks after they had finished their shows, and oddly enough, he grew on her. Even after she had left him in a fiery rage, with a thick black coat thrown over her skimpy glittery costume, her entire life shoved into two suitcases, even when she started thinking of her own shows, her own things, she never could ban Daniel Atlas from her mind, and could never fully hate him. That arrogant man had given her spark enough to work forward. She wasn’t Little Miss Perfect anymore, if she had ever been her – but that wasn’t all bad, in the end.

**V**

The first month that they lived together in the apartment at 45 East Evan Street wasn’t easy. At all. Their personalities clashed constantly, Henley and Daniel’s not exactly flowery past together didn’t help that situation, and neither did Daniel’s obvious distain and distrust of Merritt and the mentalism. Jack, for one, was happy. An apartment with power, hot water and no holes in the ceiling was a serious upgrade to his normal life, and of course he didn’t mind the whole The-Eye-Magic-Big-Grand-Plan-thing… but he also felt like a kid, more than ever. He was younger than the other three, and while Merritt was generally good at leaving everyone be apart from the occasional mentalist-trick and subtle mockery, Henley had a mildly motherly attitude towards him, and Daniel displayed an overall distain for everyone, including, of course, Jack. Jack didn’t buy it, he was decent at seeing through people – valuable skill when living in the street and picking pockets – but that didn’t mean that the arrogant behaviour didn’t hit right where it hurt.

They needed half of the first month to understand all the blueprints and instructions The Eye had left them, and the second half to organize them, assign roles and fill in the blanks. The plans were implacably detailed, but not perfect and not without holes. They had to figure out themselves how to get to certain spots – the plans told them to get Arthur Tressler as a sponsor, but the How was vague as hell; the plans told them how to do their three big shows, but not how to get there, or who would play each part, and not how to fill their shows, or how to get away from places, and so on and so forth. So they had to make their own plans, and they needed to be water- and foolproof. Not an easy task. At all. Especially when the four of them couldn’t keep up a conversation for longer than a few minutes before breaking into arguments of varying degrees of verbal violence.

Jack _hated_ arguments.

So it was no surprise that one day, he just… snapped.

“Can everybody shut the fuck up for just one second?!”  
Silence.

“Atlas, we get it, you’re smart, we are but dumb vermin. Henley, you’re a genius of your own right, figure out how to keep your anger with Atlas to yourself, because that little feud doesn’t help things here, and Merritt – can you stop poking the wounds where they hurt? I get that it’s fun for you since you are the great mentalist who knows all secrets, but you’re pouring oil into the fire of their mutual distain for each other and it makes everything worse. So… all of you, just… stop. We have a job to do here.”

In the end of his little rant, Jack’s voice quieted again and he fell back into his seat, timidity taking over again.

The others were speechless. Well, almost.

“I don’t think I’ve ever heard you say that much in a row ever since that little geek-out about Atlas here”, Merritt said.

“Jack…” Henley sighed. “I’m sorry, I…”

“I…” Daniel frowned, looked away. “I never said you lot were dumb…”

“Yeah, well, your general attitude makes it feel like you did”, Jack bit back and crossed his arms.

For a moment, they were all silent, lost in their thoughts.

“Look, there’s probably a reason the bunch of us were picked to work together, and I doubt it’s the conflict. We just… we have a job, let’s do it, and do it well, and then we can all go back to hating each other again.”

Jack sighed and stood up. “I’m going for a walk.”

**VI**

“The kid’s right”, Daniel said, entirely out of the blue.

“Huh?” Henley stopped, shifting the grocery bag to rest on her hipbone as she turned and looked at Daniel. “What do you mean?”

“Last week, when he got so angry with us. He was right.”

“Did it take you a whole week to come to that conclusion?”

Daniel laughed bitterly and rolled his eyes. “No, Henley, it didn’t. It took me a whole week to think about a solution.”

“You know, a solution to an issue concerning several people is best found by involving all those people.” Henley sighed and looked around, her eyes stopping at a few picnic benches nearby. “Sit?”, she suggested. Daniel nodded.

“I am bad at… this. Emotion-things”, he said.

“No kidding.”

“Will you let me finish?”

“Sorry.” No, she wasn’t.”

“No, you’re not.” Daniel sighed and ran a hand through his hair. “So, I’m bad at it, we all know this, I know this. What I thought about is what I have to change. Obviously, I have to stop being so…”

“Condescending? Patronizing? Arrogant? Ignorant?”

“All of the above.” Daniel frowned. “Though some of these are actually synonyms…”

“This, too, by the way”, Henley said. “You have this way of talking to people like they are dumb as bricks while you hold the key to all knowledge! I know that those words are synonyms for each other, or at least overlap! That wasn’t the point here!”

“Okay, noted.” Daniel nodded. “No correcting facts when it’s not actually needed in the conversation. Right?”

“At least not when it’s an argument.” Henley allowed herself a quick, small smile. “So Daniel Atlas can, in fact, learn and listen? Who’d have thought?”

“Oh, yeah, very funny.”

“So, what I’m saying is, you don’t have to change your whole personality, but cut down on the arrogant attitude. Listen, allow others to be smart sometimes. Also, we two should probably solve our little… what did Jack call it, _little feud_?”

“Yeah, you’re right.”

And so they did. They talked, and talked and talked on the picnic bench, ravelling up the woollen ball that was their past. They talked about their relationship, what it had been, what it would be now. This was what they had needed, probably. They had needed to talk.

“I think we earned ourselves some ice cream now”, Henley said, finally, and before Daniel could say anything, she held up one leather-gloved finger. “No comment about my weight or I’ll feed you to my piranhas.”

Daniel cracked a grin. “Fine, not today.”

**VII**

Jack was a strange little fella. He seemed older than he should at barely over twenty – if Merritt guessed correctly anyways – and usually he was all bubbly and happy, crackling with life joy, but then every now and again, he seemed to _drop_. There was no other way to describe it. It happened suddenly and without a warning, and there were two ways this could go. Either, he got very loud, telling the others to get their shit together, like he had that one time at the end of their first month together, or he would do the exact opposite and go extremely quiet for days. That things could go that way, too, Merritt had only realized after a little _incident_.

They had been working together for four months. Lived together for four months. Things were going well. They were playing gigs and little shows here and there that did well, the name they had picked, _Four Horsemen_ , in connection to magic gained popularity online, and they were growing used to living together. They had learned each other’s antics, quirks and needs. Daniel hated being called _Danny_ so naturally they had all adopted the nickname and referred to him almost exclusively by that, Henley was the only one out of the bunch who drank her coffee black, and Jack didn’t drink coffee at all, Merritt sleep-talked, Daniel snored, and then some more. But as comfortable they had grown with each other despite the odds, there were still a lot of things left in the dark. Namely, each other’s past. It hadn’t come up and it didn’t seem right to tell each other their _tear-jerking tragic backstories_ , as Merritt referred to them, but he had noticed purely by behaviour that Jack’s past likely wasn’t happy. He could read it in the way he always entered a building last, checking over his shoulder, in the way he would sit closer to windows than others, the way he snuck food and hid it in his pockets and thought they wouldn’t notice (and, granted, they rarely did)… of course, they knew that Jack had been living on the streets before, because he had told them so vaguely the first evening after Daniel had asked why he knew how to pick a door lock. But there was more, Merritt was sure. He just couldn’t pick it out just yet, and it drove him crazy! But what gave him a small impression of how bad it was one evening. Danny, slightly or more than slightly drunk after a successful gig they had done, and threw his arm around the younger one, talking loudly and excitedly about one specific trick Jack had done this evening, and despite the clumsy action being friendly in nature, Jack _froze_. He quite literally froze, his eyes wide, mouth open, hand half curled around his glass, hell, for a moment, Merritt thought he had stopped breathing!

“Excuse me”, Jack whispered, putting the glass down and walked away, to the small room he shared with Daniel. He didn’t come back out. Not for the rest of the night, not the next morning.

“He didn’t sleep last night”, Danny told Merritt over breakfast. “He was just lying there, awake, staring at the ceiling.”

He sounded surprisingly concerned, and that alone would have been enough to worry Merritt; but he had thought back last evening, and his mind had supplied him with tons of small memories of Jack shying away from touch that went further than a handshake or handing someone an object.

Oh buy, he did not like where this was going.

**VIII**

“Ten minutes until you’re up”, the backstage manager of the small theatre told them in a hushed voice. Daniel gave a curt nod and turned his attention back towards the small slit in the curtain where he could see the people that were performing right now – a group of poetry slammers, if he wasn’t mistaken. Odd. He hadn’t known that poetry slam could be a group-gig.

He knew that behind him, Henley was double-checking all their props, her chains, cuffs and locks, Jack was nervously shuffling through his card deck and Merritt… was watching Daniel. He could feel his eyes on his back, like two small hot lasers or something.

It wasn’t that Daniel minded Merritt’s _presence_ – the Eye had chosen him for a reason, whatever reason that might be, and it could actually be nice to have him around at times, especially since he was the only one out of them who could actually cook – it was just that he didn’t exactly like Merritt’s _personality_. The older man had the annoying habit of pushing everybody’s buttons right in the worst possible moment, and to stir up emotions and conflict when they really didn’t need it (then again, who _needed_ conflict, really?).

Truth to be told, Daniel could deal with Merritt’s habit of being the ever sarcastic, overbearing guy who pushed everybody’s buttons. It was the mentalism he had a problem with. It was a control-thing, he supposed. Ever since he had found magic and had understood how crucial crowd-control was, he had become hyper-focussed on controlling his environment. It came naturally, and he liked it. It was nicer than being a Number Two constantly. Like he finally had a voice and a presence and got noticed. Merritt’s mentalism-bullshit undermined his control. Daniel was comfortable with the image others had of him, comfortable with them seeing him as the control freak, hell, he could deal fine with Henley still being pissed at him for some apparently insensitive comments about her weight (though he swore up and down he hadn’t meant them as an insult, just as a statement of fact) and he could deal with being called an asshole and a jerk and a million other things, but he was decidedly _not_ comfortable with someone poking around in his mind, reading his body language and then telling everyone what he has deduced about J. Daniel Atlas. His mind was private, dammit, and he hated that Merritt seemed to want to look behind the curtain so, so badly. Why could the man not accept a _no mentalism_ rule?

Then again, Daniel wasn’t great at accepting a _No_ himself so he really had no right to be annoyed about this… but he was.

“Five minutes”, the stage manager whispered, and again, Daniel nodded. He waited until the guy had walked off with his checkboard, then he turned towards his friends… collegues… whatever they were.

“Everyone ready?”, he asked, quietly. “Everyone knows their role?”

“Of course we do”, Henley said and rolled her eyes, but she also smiled so probably she meant it in a fond way. Annoyed-but-fond. Aka. her general mood towards Daniel.

“Ready as ever”, Merritt said and grinned, his hands deep in his pockets.

Jack looked like he was about to keel over.

“Hey, you’ll be fine”, Daniel offered to him in a clumsy attempt to calm him. He didn’t even believe himself as he said it, but Jack’s face was immediately lit up by a bright smile.

“Okay”, the youngest _Horseman_ said. “Okay, yeah. Let’s do this!”

**IX**

They had been working together for almost seven months now. Henley felt proud with what they had achieved together. She and Danny had talked things out, she was at least 60% sure Merritt and Danny had had a talk as well, because while Danny still held up his general attitude of _I am the genius here and you are all annoying and mentalism is bullshit_ , but his comments towards Merritt had a lot less bite than they’d had when they all started. Henley, for one, actually enjoyed Merritt’s presence. He was a funny guy, someone who could genuinely make her laugh, he could cook a multitude of delicious dishes and he rarely used his mentalism on them beyond the really obvious things. There had only been one incident where he had hypnotised a severely sleep-deprived Danny to take an 18-hour-nap. And Jack. Sometimes, Jack provoked motherly feelings with Henley, but she had soon noticed that despite him being the youngest in the group, he was indeed an adult and brought a lot to the table. He had gotten over his starry-eyed fanboy-ing for Danny too, mostly, and that definitely helped matters in their relationships. In fact, Danny seemed to like Jack the most out of all of them. If she thought about it, this wasn’t the least bit surprising. And concerning herself, Henley felt better than ever. All the intricate plans and blueprints and shows, the heists they were planning, all this send shivers up her spine and made her almost tremble in excited anticipation. She _loved_ every step of the way.

Speaking of steps, right before their seven-month-anniversary, the _Horsemen_ scored a major next step. Scratch that, a _giant leap_ it was!

“Yes”, Danny said, pacing in front of the window, the hand not holding his phone tapping a rhythm against his thigh. “Yes, sir, that’s correct.”

Henley, who had just entered the room, carrying a bag of groceries, looked from Merritt to Jack. Jack sat on the backrest of the sofa, looking like he would fall down any moment the way he leaned forward, and seemingly hung on Danny’s lips, but Merritt caught her glance and held up a notepad he had held prepared, ever forward-thinking. _Maybe sponsor. Psssst._ the sign read. Henley mouthed an _Oooh_ and sat down as quietly as she could.

“We would be delighted, Sir”, Danny said on the phone. “Yes, we can definitely be there. Thank you sir, you won’t regret it. Yes. Goodbye ‘til Wednesday.”

He hung up and, for a moment, just stood there, staring at his phone. Then, he let out an entirely uncharacteristic “Wooooh!”

“Good news, I take it?” Merritt feigned disinterest, but his glistening eyes revealed the lie immediately.

“Guys, we just fished ourselves a sponsor. He wants us to meet him on Wednesday to discuss the details.”

“Who is it?”, Jack and Henley asked in unison. Danny allowed himself a dramatic pause before answering.

“Arthur Tressler.”

Jack fell of the sofa.

“What?!”, he quacked from the floor. “Seriously?”

“Yup.”

Henley whistled and then laughed. “Well done, Danny!”, she said.

“Indeed, not bad”, Merritt allowed. “I guess we can check that off the To Do List, then.”

Danny laughed. “I think so too.”  
“I’m getting the bubbly”, Henley said, getting up to take the bottle of champagne out of the fridge. “Time to celebrate.”

**X**

Jack looked miserable and did a poor job hiding it. He was shivering like crazy, and wore the grey fleece blanket with the white stars that usually covered their sofa like a fluffy cloak. Or maybe a toga. Daniel wasn’t sure of the difference. Fact was, Jack looked like death warmed over.

“You okay there?”, he asked innocently and sat down in the old beaten-up leather armchair across from the sofa. Jack sniffed and barely looked up.

“Just a little under the weather”, the Sleight mumbled.

“Uh-huh”, Daniel said, not the slightest bit convinced. “And I am a 400 foot tall purple platypus bear with pink horns and silver wings.”

At that, Jack looked up.

“Did you just reference _The Last Airbender_?”

“Maybe.” Daniel leaned forward and handed Jack the mug he had been holding. The tea was steaming gently. “Here.”

“Thanks.” Jack freed one hand from his blanket cocoon and took a sip. “Bleurgh.”

“It’s medicine. That shit never tastes good.”

Daniel winced at his own words. He really, really wasn’t good at being comforting… or gentle. Dammit.

“I can still do my part”, Jack promised, and coughed into his elbow. “I can…”

“You can do your part when you’re better.” Daniel crossed his arms. “You are, frankly, looking like shit, and you won’t be any help if you work yourself into the ground. Just… get better, and then you can work again.”

“Like you’re one to talk”, Jack muttered and took another sip of the tea. “Didn’t you almost collapse from sleep deprivation until Merritt hypnotised you?”

“That was one time!”, Daniel protested. “I don’t get why you guys keep bringing it up!”

He sighed. “Point is… I worry about you, okay, despite how annoying you can be.”

“Awww. I’m touched.” Jack didn’t sound touched at all. Just hoarse. “I’ll cherish that declaration of love forever, Danny.”

“It wasn’t a declaration of love. And don’t call me Danny.”

“It was, too”, Jack said, but he was silent and drank his tea. Ten minutes later, he was passed out on the couch.

Merritt had made soup and Henley had brought a collection of different flu meds as well as Cola and baked Salt-Sticks, which she swore up and down was the number one thing for a stomach flu. Daniel didn’t know much about this whole thing, so he left the others to play nurse and dove into the work, planning and walking through every step in his mind, finding problems, hooks and things that might go wrong, and then correcting them all. Only after dinner, he had to stop and accept that it was his turn to take watch over their youngest. They slept in the same room after all.

Jack was fast asleep, pale with bright red cheeks and an equally red nose tip, his hair matted with sweat. He looked even younger than usual when he was asleep, the poor guy, Daniel thought and crawled under the blanket of his own bed.

He was woken up a few hours later, by harsh coughing coming from the other side of the room. He sat up, blinking in confusion for a moment until the fog in his mind had cleared enough to realize the situation. Within seconds, he was out of bed and kneeling in front of Jack, who was bent over the edge of his bed, almost hacking up a lung.

“Hey, hey, calm down, it’s okay”, Daniel whispered. “I’m here, you’re okay…”

Jack took a shaky breath and then broke into another coughing fit. This one sounded different than the one before, and Daniel hurried to the desk in the corner to grab the trash bin, just in time, holding it as Jack leaned forward and emptied out his stomach. The whole time, Daniel held the bin with one hand, using the other to stroke through Jack’s hair and run his hand over his neck and back, and whispered gentle nothings he hoped were somewhat comforting.

Then, finally, there was nothing for Jack to bring up anymore, and he fell back into his bed, panting. Daniel sighed, then went to rinse out the bin and to get a glass of water and some painkillers, just in case. This was going to be a long night.

**XI**

“Are you nervous?”

“A little. Won’t lie to you, a little.”

Merritt poured himself another glass of the expensive red wine that Arthur Tressler had gifted them with a while back and that they had saved up _for a special occasion_. And their first big heist out of three happening tomorrow – the public part at least, since they had done the hard work long before – definitely counted as a special occasion. Danny had gone to bed early, and Jack was passed out on the sofa, so it was down to Henley and Merritt on the floor of their hotel suite in Las Vegas.

“Tricking a ton of people. Big stuff.”

“Eloquent as ever, are you?” Henley poured herself another glass as well. “Oh, God, let’s hope this will go smoothly.”

“It will.” Merritt, despite having had one-and-a-half glasses of red wine as well as some whiskey, sounded clear as ever, and confident as ever. “I mean, c’mon, Atlas planned this. There’s no way something can go wrong!”

“True… true.” Henley sighed. “Sometimes I think he’s got OCD or something, he is so obsessed with getting everything perfect…”

“I don’t think he has… that… he is obsessive alright, but his mother had him tested as a child so if he has OCD I think I’d know.”

“Oh, would you now? When did he tell you that?”

“He sort of told me… remember that movie we watched about autism, the other day, and he was going on and on about how unrealistic it was because testing goes differently?”

Henley pursed her lips. “Nah, don’t recall.”

“Well, he was a few beers deep so his guard was down, aaand… bingo-bango-bongo, body language read, some subtle suggestions to get the rest out…”  
“You hypnotised him? Twice? How do I not remember that?!”

“Possibly because you, too, were a few beers deep.”

Henley laughed. “Possibly.”

For a while, they just sat in comfortable silence, drinking and half-listening to Jack sleep-talking.

“I think we should record him sometime”, Merritt said, finally. “Some of the stuff the kid says is gold-worthy.”

“Remember that one time he fell asleep in the cab and talked about seeing Danny naked?”

Merritt laughed out loud. “Yup, definitely remember that.”

“Danny blushed for a week!”

“Remember that, too.”

“He’s a disaster when it comes to emotions.” Henley sighed deeply. “Like, a seeeeerious disaster.”

“No doubt you’re speaking from experience.”

She groaned. “Damn you and your mentalism, McKinney!”

“Oh, no, that’s not mentalism, anyone could tell from your bitter tone, darling.”

“Oi!” Henley sat up straight, her voice suddenly a bit shriller. “I am _not_ bitter!”

“Sure you’re not.”

“I am _not_!”

Merritt chuckled and downed his glass of wine.

“So what was that about being a disaster at emotions?”, he asked, eyebrows raised. Henley hit him with a pillow from the couch.

**XII**

“Why didn’t he call yet?”

Daniel was pacing back and forth in their small New York apartment, where everything was still broken and a mess after the fight Jack and the FBI no doubt had had. Broken mirror shards, a torn blue veil-curtain, a card deck spread all over the living room floor.

Daniel’s hands were shaking, he had bitten his lip bloody, and his hair stood into every direction from where he had pulled on it, until some on it came loose from his scalp.

“He should have called by now!”

“Danny, calm down”, Henley said, trying to keep her voice steady despite the worry evident on her face. “We saw the switch happen. We know he’s alright.”

“Do we?” Danny stopped his pacing for a moment, staring at her with wild eyes. “Because, what if they caught him after? He was supposed to call! He…”

He slumped to the floor, knees pulled to his chest, his breaths erratic.

“Atlas”, Merritt said, warily, and knelt down. “You have to breath, okay? Focus on my voice…”

“No! No hypnotism, that doesn’t work on me, not now, not-“

“I’m not trying to hypnotise you, I’m trying to keep you from working yourself into a frenzy, you stubborn moron!” Merritt clicked his tongue. “Now, focus on my voice, okay? Breathe in.”

Slowly, Daniel complied. Henley sat down behind him, one hand on his back, forming small circles.

“Hold it in… three, four… six… seven. Out.”

Daniel exhaled.

“Three, four, five… In again.”

For a while, a while that seemed like an eternity, the three of them sat on the ground, Merritt walking Daniel through the breathing exercise until he was sure their Showman wouldn’t fall over, and Henley acted as the glue of the situation, one hand on Daniel’s back, the other on Merritt’s shoulder, holding everything together. They were all worried about Jack, but Daniel was beyond that, losing control of the situation – his Achilles’ heel.

And then, finally, as they got ready for their final act – the usual black and white attire, matching but still individual enough, Henley’s cellphone rang.

“Jack?”, she asked. Immediately, Merritt and Daniel stood, highly alert.

“We were so worried! Are you okay?”

Jack answered on the other end of the line.

“Yes, we’re almost ready.”

Silence.

“That’s good.”

Silence.

“Listen, Jack, we gotta head out soon, but I’ll hand you over to Danny real quick, okay?”

Daniel practically ripped the phone from Henley’s hand.

“Jack? Are you okay? Are you safe?”

“ _Yes, I am, you controlling maniac_ ”, Jack answered on the other end.

“That’s not funny. We were seriously freaking out here.”  
“ _We, huh? Or you, especially?_ ”

“Does it matter?”

“ _Maybe_.”

**XIII**

The merry-go-round was spinning, a bright strange body of light in the dark, the music sounding scary and metallic and foreign in the silence. It was a bit like in a Stephen King novel. As if, in a cloud of red balloons, the strange sewer clown would show up to eat them. But no clown emerged, but a man they had thought to be their enemy until now.

He looked tired, his hair dishevelled, in a simple shirt, suit jacket and dark jeans. He still had a small scratch on his cheek where Jack’s card had hit him and broken the skin.

“Oh… my… God.” Merritt let out a surprised huff of air. “That’s impossible! I, uh, I so did not see that coming!”, the mentalist went on.  
Dylan Rhodes grinned, spreading his arms to the side.

“That was… actually pretty good”, Daniel admitted.

“Thank you”, Dylan answered.

“Uh, when I said… _always be the smartest guy in the room_ …”

“We were in agreement. Henley.”

Henley just stared, mouth and eyes wide open, causing Daniel to snicker.

“I’ve never seen her speechless!”

“Well, I will take that as a huge compliment”, Dylan said, leaning forward to shake Henley’s hand.

Jack suddenly had turned very pale and looked a little bit like a scared child. “Hey, man, I'm so sorry for kicking your ass. Really”, he stuttered. Dylan graced him with a smile.

“It’s alright.”

“Hey, listen, for the record…” Merritt took off his hat to scratch his head. “I have always been a 100% believer. And the amount of energy I have expended to keep these infidels on point...”

Henley laughed out loud, and Dylan chuckled.  
“Merritt, relax. You’re in!”

“Oh, God bless!”

Dylan shrugged and lead them closer towards the merry-go-round. “The real magic”, he explained. “…is taking four strong solo acts and making them all work together. And that's exactly what you did.”

He turned back around to them, stepping backwards onto the merry-go-round. “So welcome. Welcome to the Eye.”

All four horsemen let out surprised, amazed splutters and gasps as they realized what those words meant. Then, holding each other by the hand, they jumped onto the merry-go-round and followed Dylan, to its centre and then down a secret staircase.


End file.
